Yoav Hamdani

Yoav Hamdani

yh
Dr.
Yoav
Hamdani
United States History
Violence

History of Violence
History of Slavery, Borderlands History
Indigenous History
African American History
Military History
Digital Humanities and Quantitative Methods

 

 

Current Projects

My research combines social, cultural, legal, and political history with digital humanities and data science methods to gain insights into processes of national expansion in North America. My project develops a narrative on the making of the U.S. empire from its foundation to the early 20th century and uses it to explore three interrelated themes: the paradox of liberty’s dependence on the racialization of unfree labor, the conquest and dispossession of indigenous lands, and the perpetration of mass atrocities by a democratic society. It suggests that the U.S. achieved its imperial goals through an intricate “metabolism” of violence: integrating while oppressing unfree laborers, including enslaved people, captives, and soldiers, constantly converting their energy to generate additional violence.

My first monograph, Uncle Sam’s Slaves: Unfree Labor and the United States Military Establishment 1776-1870, is the first comprehensive history of military slavery, uncovering the place of hitherto disregarded persons in U.S. history and their involuntary participation in building an American continental empire. After concluding my first monograph, I plan to embark on a second research project, The Violent Work of Empire, which offers a history of the brutalities of American westward expansion through the prism of military work and the evolution of unequal labor relations within it. My narrative considers how the vivid experience of military laborers projected on and fashioned specific violent acts against indigenous and other populations.

Curriculum Vitae 

Fellowships and Grants (selection)

  • Postdoctoral Fellowship, Digital Humanities Center, Mandel School for the Advanced Studies in the Humanities, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (2022-2023)

  • GSAS Teaching Scholar Fellowship, Columbia University (2021-2022)

  • Louis Leonard Tucker Alumni Fellowship, Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston (2020)

  • Humanities War & Peace Initiative Grant, Columbia University (2020)

  • Gunther Barth Research Fellowship, Bancroft Library, The University of California – Berkeley  (2020)

  • Jacob M. Price Visiting Research Fellowship, William L. Clements Library, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (2019)

  • Dissertation Research Fellowship, Wilson Special Collections Library, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2019)

  • Richard F. Hofstadter Fellowship, Graduate School of Arts and Science, Columbia University (2015-2020)

Prizes 

  • Bancroft Dissertation Prize, Given by Columbia University for Best Dissertation in American History and Diplomacy (2023)

  • Edward M. Coffman First Manuscript Prize, The Society for Military History Annual Award for Best Dissertation in Military History (2023)

  • SHEAR Manuscript Prize (Finalist), Awarded by the Society of the History of the Early Republic (2023)

  • Lehman Center’s Digital History Project Award, Lehman Center for American History, Columbia University (2022)

  • Provost Award, Tel Aviv University (2013)

Education

Ph.D.    History, Columbia University, New York (2022)

M. Phil  United States History; History of Violence, Columbia University (2018)

M.A.     History, Columbia University (2017)

B.A.      Multidisciplinary Honors Program in the Humanities and Arts, Tel Aviv University (2013)

Publications 

Peer Reviewed Articles

Hamdani, Yoav. “Servants not Soldiers: The Origins of Slavery in the United States Army, 1797-1816,” Journal of the Early Republic. (Forthcoming Winter 2023).

Presentations (selection)

“Slavery with Receipts.” The Economic History Association of Israel 11th Annual Conference. Haifa. December 2022 (in Hebrew).

“Claiming the State.” Roundtable at Crafting the Narratives of Empire: Contested Roots of Revolution in the Long 18th Century. The Fifth International Conference of Thomas Paine Studies at Iona University, New Rochelle, New York. September 2022.

“Vouching for Military Slavery: Uncovering the History of Enslaved Servants in the United States Army.” Society for the Historians of the Early American Republic 43rd Annual Meeting. New Orleans. July 2022.

"Slaves as Servants: The Origins of Slavery within the United States Army.” Turning the Tide: Revolutionary Moments in Military History, the Society for Military History 87th Annual Conference. Norfolk, Virginia. May 2021.

current